Teamsters

Ron Carey, a former president of the Teamsters who pledged to rid the union of mob corruption but was later forced from leadership in a financial scandal, has died. He was 72. Carey died Thursday at New York Hospital Medical Center of Queens of complications from lung cancer, his son Daniel Carey said. Carey first joined the Teamsters in 1956 while working as a driver for United Parcel Service.

Interstate Bakeries Corp. and the Teamsters union ended their standoff over a new union contract, allowing the bankrupt maker of Hostess Twinkies to reorganize with financial backing from buyout firm Ripplewood Holdings. Lawyers for Interstate announced the deal Friday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Kansas City, Mo. Under the proposed reorganization, Ripplewood and hedge fund manager Silver Point Finance would invest in Interstate, and the Teamsters would accept a series of concessions that would save the snack maker from liquidation.

Performance Transportation Services Inc., the new-car hauler struck Monday by the Teamsters union, said it had lost customers and was "on a quick path to death." The company controlled by billionaire Ron Burkle, the second-largest hauler of new vehicles in the U.S., issued the warning in a court filing Tuesday. It said that none of its workers had crossed picket lines and that it was not hiring replacement drivers. The stakes are high as well for the Teamsters, which called the strike after the company won U.S. Bankruptcy Court approval to cut worker pay.

A day after defeating Hillary Rodham Clinton in Wisconsin and Hawaii, Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama picked up the endorsement of the powerful Teamsters union, a major boost for his candidacy in the upcoming Texas and Ohio primaries. Obama's labor coup came as Clinton and her advisors were scrambling to stop the momentum her rival has gained by winning 10 contests in a row, all by lopsided margins. On Tuesday, Obama won a party caucus in Hawaii, where he was born, 76% to 24%.

Rick Valencia stared through his windshield at the Hollywood writers pacing in front of the Paramount Studios gate, a blur of red T-shirts and picket signs blocking his passage. He'd been driving trucks for more than three decades, but earned less in a year than some of these writers made in a week. Scribes in the upper echelon of the Writers Guild of America were bona-fide members of the Hollywood elite.

Even as writers and major studios were making a last-ditch effort to avert a walkout early Monday morning, both sides were busily preparing for all-out war. Union workers were furiously assembling picket signs Friday as strike captains contacted scores of television and film writers to tell them where to show up for demonstrations expected to sprout across Hollywood and in New York.

Representatives of Teamsters Local 399, along with basic crafts unions representing such workers as electricians, plumbers, laborers and plasterers, reached a three-year tentative contract with studios and TV networks. Details weren't immediately disclosed pending notification of members. Companies are represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. About 6,000 Southern California workers are affected.

April 3, 2007 | John H. Bunzel, JOHN H. BUNZEL, a past president of San Jose State University, is a political scientist and senior research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

IF NEGOTIATIONS break down, the faculty on the 23 campuses of the California State University system could go on strike later this week. Any strike would be short-lived, primarily because a university is not a supermarket or an industrial factory; it is a unique and specialized institution, with its essential purposes the advancement and dissemination of knowledge. But the trend toward collective bargaining has transformed academia, whether as a positive development I remain to be convinced.

Costco Wholesale Corp., the largest U.S. warehouse chain, reached a tentative agreement with Teamsters representing 13,000 California workers after four months of negotiation, the union said. The agreement represents "significant gains" in retirement, wages and seniority and maintains current pension and healthcare contributions, the Teamsters said. Voting begins in the next two weeks.

Officials at the National Labor Relations Board are scheduled to count ballots this morning to see whether Los Angeles Times press operators have authorized union representation by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. As many as 300 of the production employees were eligible to vote Thursday and Friday on whether to unionize the newspaper's two printing facilities, in downtown Los Angeles and Costa Mesa.